Minds were blown when word of Arcane Season 2 having a $250 million budget started swirling, but that number is apparently inaccurate.
Arcane is a smash hit by any measure, but the area where it arguably shines the brightest is the quality of its animation. 3D animation often struggles when it comes to conveying physical interactions, with things often feeling overly stiff or lacking in impact. In Arcane, every frame is so meticulously crafted that it feels more realistic than almost anything else in its class.
There’s no question that animation studio Fortiche put loads of work into it over the years it took to create. This made word of the $250 million budget feel at least somewhat plausible. But according to one of Riot Games’ founders, the real figure was considerably smaller.
What was Arcane Season 2’s production budget?
The budget of Arcane Season 2 was estimated to be between $150 million and $187 million by a founder of Riot Games.
Marc Merrill sat down for an interview with Gizmodo and discussed League of Legends’ future as a cross-media intellectual property. As part of that, Arcane Season 2 came up alongside the reports of a $250 million budget for the season. Merrill brushed off this number and stated that the number was much lower.
“First of all, the $250 million headline is not even accurate because that includes marketing expenses. The actual creation budget is significantly less than that. One of the fascinating things is that once a meme sets into people’s heads, showing up with facts counter to that narrative, it’s sometimes hard to dislodge a perspective, which is just fascinating to observe…It was significantly less than that,” Merrill said.
When asked to give a ballpark figure, he stated that the actual production budget was 60 to 75% of that $250 million figure. That would place it at or above $150 million, but also well shy of $200 million.
Regardless, that estimate is still astronomical.
As for whether Arcane Season 2’s budget is money well-spent by Riot Games, that’s uncertain. Arcane Season 2 enjoyed strongly positive reviews and seems to have largely met fans’ expectations after the inaugural season blew up. Merrill stated that the success of Arcane has also brought back lapsed League of Legends and turned new fans onto the game. Whether they stick around and start buying into the game is another.
Riot founder talks layoffs relative to budgets
Counter-weighting the eye-popping budget of Arcane Season 2 was repeated news of Riot Games laying off staff. This resulted in Legends of Runeterra shutting down, Riot’s publishing arm being closed, and games seemingly being canceled. All in all, 530 people were laid off by the company. Others in and around League of Legends esports also had their jobs impacted during this time.
Merrill discussed this unfortunate duality.
“In an ideal world, that never should have happened…Riot got aggressive from a growth perspective and wanted to expand widely, to do lots and lots of things without sufficient attention to talent density, systems, and what products are the right ones. Some of that is derived from a belief that making great things is easier than it actually is,” he said.
Riot still has multiple products in the works. League of Legends continues onwards, Arcane follow-ups are coming, and a League of Legends MMORPG is still in development.
